


Cut and Clarity

by JunkRadio



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Espionage, Features Compilation characters but not Compilation storylines, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Relationships, Sibling Bonding, Turks - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 22:25:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunkRadio/pseuds/JunkRadio
Summary: A step-by-step guide on how to shape unrefined killers into proper Turks OR: a series of stories about the goings-on of Shinra Inc. in the years leading up to the Meteor Crisis.





	Cut and Clarity

The test chamber is stone silent, save for the last shell casing falling to the ground with a gentle plink against the tile. Gunsmoke lingers and drifts through the air as a ghost might. It seeps into clothes and hair to make sure every individual in the room will go home that night smelling faintly of sulfur. On the far side of the room sit a dozen or so motorized dummies on tracks that all faintly wobble in the aftermath bullets impacting into their forms. Each is marked with two neat holes in the chest and a third in the forehead. Seven other people inside the cramped firing range stand in shocked stillness until someone finally mutters: “Woah.”

After another moment’s quiet, a befuddled voice comes over the intercom: “We’re- we’re gonna reset the test. Applicant 34, the director would like for you, uh, to do that again.”

She nods and snaps a new clip into the pistol still smoking in her hand.

_The cold deepened as the night grew darker and still they were outside. It was beginning to leech through her clothes and into her bones. Her nose burned, her fingers were cracked, and that did not deter her father from placing the reloaded rifle back in her dainty hands._

When the second test produces the same result as the first, the other applicants are led out of the firing range for a brief lunch break. Except for Applicant 34, who is told to wait in the range for the director. It doesn’t take long - within minutes, the metal door slides open and in strides a tall, blonde haired man.

“Very impressive!” says Director Lazard as soon as he enters. He’s handsome, close to thirty if she had to guess, and his smile could almost be described as “fond.” In turn, she folds her arms over her stomach nervously because conversation with strangers had never been her strong suit. “Almost record breaking, in fact. In _my_ time as director of SOLDIER, we’ve never had an applicant score so well in the artillery test.”

 _Almost_ record breaking. Not quite good enough. Second place. It’s frustrating, but considering the circumstances, understandable. She could hasten a guess as to who’s scores outpaced hers. There’s no way she can measure up to a god, after all. It would have been nice to meet the General in the flesh but he recused himself from watching applicants years ago. Apparently, it made people nervous.

“Thank you, sir,” she says and her voice is quiet.

Lazard doesn’t miss a beat. Considering the maladjusted types drawn to SOLDIER, one introverted nineteen year old is nothing. He shuffles through a sheaf of papers on a clipboard until he comes to the one with her picture on it. The old camera down in the recruitment office really doesn’t do favors for anyone. Always makes everyone look flat and washed out.

“Vesper… Tuesti…? Any relation to-”

“My older brother,” she says and her tone is very sharp, a message for him to not press the subject. Lazard easily drops it, well accustomed to nontraditional familial relationships. But he certainly can see the resemblance. She shares plenty of features with her sibling - brown complexion, raised cheekbones, and dark, inset eyes. Unlike the typical SOLDIER, the girl in front of him is slender, with black wavy hair clipped uneven and close to her head. Where she differs from the rest of the recruits, beyond her aptitude with a firearm, is the square of her shoulder and the resolute gleam in her eye. Unyielding and, despite her nervousness, unafraid of a high ranking official within Shinra.

“Well, I’m sure he’s proud,” he says and Vesper’s mouth twitches. He’s wise to move on after that, flipping to more notes. To make it this far, every applicant has to pass a general background check. Like everyone else in the batch, she comes from mundane origins - raised in a small village an hour outside of Kalm, moved to Midgar at 15, enrolled in a good private high school (no doubt thanks to her brother’s position within the company). Parents listed as Ruvie and Valery Tuesti.

It’s that last point that raises his eyebrows.

“Your father was a member of the Sosul’ka Liberation Front?” he asks and watches her back straighten more. All she does is nod. “You understand why that’s concerning to me, I hope. Someone hoping to enter SOLDIER after being raised by a commanding member of an anti-Shinra guerilla army sets off a few mental alarms. It’s safe to assume he’s the one who taught you to shoot like that, correct?”

 _She was so cold that she_ **_hurt._ ** _Breathing was hard and the tremors shaking her small frame made it almost impossible to aim at the targets lined up at the far end of their homemade range. Her father loomed behind her. She could feel his black eyes staring holes into the back of her head. There was no going back inside. Not until she hit the center of every single target within seconds._

_She didn’t complain. She wanted to make him proud._

“Yes.” Lazard starts to open his mouth and she speaks before he can get the words out: “My father was a former member of the SLF when my brother was offered his position as well. Nothing’s changed since then.”

“There’s a world of difference between an architect and a SOLDIER,” Lazard says, unoffended by the teenager’s interjection.

“Is there? Respectfully, sir, would sabotaging a reactor not do an infinitely greater blow to Shinra as a whole than one SOLIDER with a sniper rifle?” Some of her nervous tension gives way to frustration and Lazard thinks she’s been grilled like this plenty of times before. Then she remembers her position and sucks in a breath. Her arms fold behind her back, her jaw tightens. “There’s no need to question my loyalty, sir. If I meant any harm, I would have done the work to conceal my family history. But I didn’t.”

The warm smile returns to the director’s face. “Good answer.” And she lets out a breath, to his amusement. “Follow me. There’s a larger range a few floors up better suited for your abilities.”

* * *

No one warned Tseng of the monotony of being a Turk. He anticipated bureaucracy and paperwork, because that came with any important position in company as dominating as Shinra, but it was the _downtime_ that drove him up the wall. It wasn’t a constant drip feed of problems to manage and things to deal with, but weeks of chaos followed by just as many weeks of nothing. The highs were incredible; the lows excruciating. Both were impossible to prepare for.

Right now, they were trapped in a low. He should be grateful for the peace. Three weeks prior, Maur had nearly lost an arm. A high-level manager proven to be funneling money to his own account had opted to blow up himself and his apartment instead of face his punishment at the hands of the Turks. The old martial artist had been right outside the door. He was still on leave, dealing with the physical therapy. Not that he was missing much - now their time was filled with scouting recruits, filing reports, keeping tabs on informants and people of interest, and routine bodyguard work.

Highest highs; lowest lows. _Do it all without question because that’s your job._ It might as well have been their motto with how much Veld said it. Sometimes the others would parrot it to each other on the way to whatever work needed done. Sometimes he’d catch _himself_ repeating it to an empty room, like a crazy person.

“But does it have to be so boring?” Cissnei groans behind him, as though she read his mind.

“Would you rather trade places with Maur?” he replies blithely and flips through his notes in search of something he wrote down days ago. The response he gets is an unhappy gurgle. Somewhere on the other side of the office, Alvis snickers. A slight smirk itches across Tseng’s mouth as well right until he notices Cissnei sit upright in his periphery.

“Oop, eyes forward. Boss is on the hunt.”

That coaxes Tseng to turn his chair and look where she’s looking. Sure enough, Veld is striding past the glass panes that comprise their wall facing the corridor to the elevators. When he notices his available Turks watching him, he gestures to Tseng before he even reaches the door. The younger man knows what that means and gets up to pluck his jacket from where he hung it over another chair. By the time the veteran Turk leans into their office, he’s pulled it on.

“Is something happening?” Tseng asks and notices his colleagues trying to not look _too_ excited.

“Just need you to evaluate something with me. Won’t take long.”

A small chorus of complaints goes up from Alvis and Cissnei as he strides to the door. The usual accusations of their boss playing favorites and why does Tseng get to _do things_ and the unfairness of it all. It’s the sort of thing Veld’s become immune to. If anything, he seems to find it amusing - when Tseng joins the older man in the hallway, there’s a slight grin tugging at the corners of his weathered mouth.

“As you were, you two,” Tseng calls behind him in a tone that’s almost flippant and then casually ducks to avoid the paper ball lobbed his way.

Veld doesn’t tell him what needs evaluating as they walk to the elevators but it doesn’t seem crucial. He’s conversational the whole trip to the 55th floor, asking about Maur’s arm and other general status updates. Tseng fills him in during the walk down the halls and feels a weird buzz of warmth in the pit of his stomach when the older man nods approvingly. That happens sometimes. He just makes himself compartmentalize the sensation and focus on where they’re going instead. Carpeted hallways give way to tile floors and metal walls and soon he recalls that the 55th floor is the artillery firing range. Odd, considering they have their own.

“Are we doing some target practice today? We _should_ have brought Alvis and Cissnei then,” he says in such an unserious tone that it almost counts as a joke. It makes Veld chuckle at least.

“No, we’re just observing.” He nods to one of the windows overlooking the range. Tseng approaches and looks down at wide open room with curious eyes. The moving targets have started their routines but there isn’t the usual staccato of automatic gunfire. In fact, it’s surprisingly empty save for two figures at the front. One he recognizes as the director of SOLDIER, and the other a young woman checking a rifle as Lazard speaks. His head cants to the side, eyes flicker Veld’s way as his boss leans against the bulletproof glass. “Watch.”

At first, he doesn’t understand. Then the woman shoulders the rifle, a timer lights up on the wall, and everything falls into place. Anytime Tseng has ever had need to come to the 55th floor, the noise is unbearable. It’s a chaos of people unloading too many rounds to handle too few targets and it never fails to give him a headache. Not so in this case. Each gunshot that rings is a note in a song that cracks the air apart like a bolt from materia. They are expertly placed and meticulously timed. One-two, pause, three. One-two, pause, three. So precise that a man could set his watch to it. They stop only to give way to the practiced clack and clatter of a reload - a bridge in the melody that resumes in seconds. One-two, pause, three. Dummies rock back and forth from the impact and register a score that keeps climbing until the moment the countdown hits zero.

Then it’s eerily silent again. The woman lowers her rifle, squints at the range, and then slips the ear protection down around her neck. Lazard is clapping and, after a moment, he realizes so is Veld.

“Well? What do you think?”

Tseng hums to himself and mentally goes through the checklist of agents they have on staff and their weapons of choice. All of their firearms experts are excellent shots but none of them could claim the title of a marksman. And they sorely lack for a sniper.

“I think we should talk to her before Lazard puts her in SOLDIER blues.”

* * *

Vesper Tuesti sits across from them in a small break room on the 55th Floor. She is quieter than Tseng expected and by that he means she seems utterly unwilling to talk at all. One leg jitters up and down from its spot on the couch and she seems more annoyed than intimidated. Her eyes - a nice honey-brown color, he notes - are narrowed with suspicion even as Veld presses a styrofoam cup of coffee into her hands. She’s unhappy to be snatched away from a potential SOLDIER position. Lazard was just as displeased to see them saunter into the range. But their happiness is at the very bottom of Tseng’s agenda.

“So you know who we are,” Veld says as he sits across from her in a plastic chair. His second-in-command hangs back, waiting by the door to shoo off any hapless artilleryman who might stray in. “That will make this easy.”

“Turks.” She purses her lips. “My brother told me about you.”

“All good, I hope.” Veld’s tone is comfortable, unperturbed by the young woman’s frosty aloofness. Though for the briefest second, right as Veld half-smiles, her expression shifts. It turns soft, almost nostalgic, and has to be forced into a scowl. Tseng doesn’t understand. “Then I suppose you know why we interrupted you.”

“I don’t want to be a Turk,” she bites out as soon as he finishes. “I want to join SOLDIER.”

“Why? Whatever they’d pay you, we pay m-”

“Respect.” And her back straightens when she says it. It’s a more blunt and honest answer than either anticipated, and it borders on childish enough to almost make Tseng laugh. He’s met others in that program with even more naive dreams but it’s the serious-faced intensity that makes him doubt his initial evaluation. He expects the same reaction from Veld as well, but the man is very quiet, his hands folded over his knees. “I won’t get it in the Turks. I’ve heard the stories.”

“Won’t get it in SOLDIER either,” Tseng mutters. Vesper’s head snaps over to him and furious tension tightens every muscle in her body. It makes her hands ball into fists, sends a signal to her brain to knock every tooth in his smug mouth down his throat. She has to swallow the urge down all so she can focus on the man in front of her when he sighs.

“He’s right.” _Though he could keep those thoughts to himself,_ says the sharp look he shoots his protege. “War’s almost over. You won’t get any glory. Shoot all the targets you want, but SOLDIER is an organization built around swordplay. I’m sure Lazard thinks he can expand their scope, but you’d be better off teaching a fish to ride a bicycle.”

“I can learn how to use a sword,” she insists, but the spark in her voice has fizzled as the self-doubt sets in. She didn’t think this through and Tseng is more sure than ever that his initial impression that she would be a good fit was way off the mark.

“And I believe you, but it would be a waste. A good sniper is rare and I think that’s what you could be. That’s what you were _taught_ to be. Right? I saw the footage from the applicant range. You’re comfortable with a handgun but the rifle is where you’re at home.”

_Blood smeared the trigger and stock from the frozen cracks in the creases of her fingers but the gunshots never stopped. They gained a pace, a drumbeat rhythm, that guided each round into a target before moving onto the next. She pulls the bolt, ejects the casing, and slides it back in place. The cold had taken up residence in her marrow. It wrapped around her ribcage and steadied her breathing so each shot could ring true. A waltz that ended with a final, perfect shot._

_“Good girl.”_

“You don’t hesitate when you pull the trigger,” Veld continues. “I can work with that. Turn it into something useful. You’re right that I can’t promise you respect, but I can give you power. You’ll know everything that goes on within this company. It’ll make you dangerous and hated but you’ll have a reach that even the most venerable SOLDIER couldn’t dream of.”

_Her father carried her back into the house and she kept her rifle hugged against her chest the whole walk back. Numbness had settled into the tips of her fingers and now the exhaustion was catching up to her. Everything was so quiet. Her father’s hold was warm and comforting and safe and he walked with unfaltering purpose. There was no one in the world stronger than him, she thought, and when Vesper looked up at him through frosty lashes, he noticed. A smile pulled across his mouth, but it went no further. Behind his eyes there was still nothing but the cold._

_“Myshka, if you ever meet another man like me, you must kill him on the spot. Do you understand?”_

Vesper’s nervous leg twitch has stopped. She’s staring at Veld unblinking, hands laying still in her lap. Competing feelings battle in her chest - fear and nostalgia, resentment and affection - but she hangs on his every word. The familiarity is unavoidable. It’s something she wants to ignore and can’t because so much as looking at the man takes her back. And she knows it’s making her into a mark but she’s a fly in a web now. Struggling would merely ensnare her further.

“If you don’t want that, then I’m happy to let you walk out that door and join SOLDIER with Lazard. But I think you do.”

He extends an open palm to her. A smile pulls across his mouth but stops there.

Vesper doesn’t hesitate - she takes his hand, squeezes tight, soaks in its comfort.

“Welcome to the Turks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written so if you made it to the end, thanks.


End file.
